''The autobahn speeder known as Turbo-Rolf, who contributed to the death of a young woman and her daughter, was jailed for 18 months today.



The verdict ended a trial which has stirred passions across Germany, even resulting in death threats against the judge, Brigitte Hecking, apparently from a person or a group sympathetic to the man who was driving at over 155mph at the time of the crash.

Rolf Fischer, a 34-year-old test driver for DaimlerChrysler, looked pale and shook his head repeatedly after Judge Hecking found him guilty of manslaughter. "There has never been a car accident in the modern history of Germany that has so aroused popular feeling," said prosecutor Matthias Marx.

He had demanded a 21-month sentence - in part as a signal to other high-speed tailgaters on the motorway network - but will probably not lodge an appeal. The defence is demanding a retrial.

Herr Fischer, said the judge, had been speeding legally down the fast lane of the A5 - most stretches of the German Autobahn have no upper speed limits.

He flashed the car of the 21-year-old mother who was accompanied by her two-year-old child, and signalled that he wanted clear passage. "It was a driving manoeuvre that occurs hundreds of times a day," said the Tagesspiegel newspaper today.

"It usually works out alright because the driver in front keeps his nerve and switches lanes without panicking. But on July 14, 2003, it all went wrong."

The woman lost control of her car and crashed fatally into some trees. Herr Fischer, said the judge, drove on.

Later he rang the police to ask details of the accident. This aroused initial suspicions.

Four witnesses were heard and it quickly became clear how difficult it is to judge visual testimony in high-speed cases. One witness identified Herr Fischer’s car, a Mercedes CL600 Coupe, on the basis that it had two separated headlamps on either side.

But the witness himself was travelling at 158mph and was being overtaken; his observation was based on a split-second assessment.

There were two test drivers on the stretch of motorway at the time. One was Herr Fischer’s boss, driving a Mercedes S Class. This prompted speculation that the employee could somehow have been covering for his boss, but the judge was ultimately convinced by the witnesses. Much of the questioning hinged on whether the witnesses could tell the difference between the two models of Mercedes.

The jail sentence - which will have to be served out and will not be suspended - is strict by German standards. Even so, said Rainer Bogs, spokesman for the Karlsruhe prosecutor, the "fast lane tailgaters on German Autobahns will not be deterred. We must still reckon with irresponsible overtaking hundreds of times a day."

Two wooden crosses, a smaller one representing the infant daughter, have been planted on the accident site. The family of the dead woman left the courtroom today to place flowers on the Autobahn crash scene.''

[from The Times/England]

Just wonder what your question is about. As far as I know the CL is available in the U.S. That doesn't make it a bad car or an invitation to mayhem any more than any other fast car.

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95 SL500 Smoke Silver, Parchment 64K
07 E350 4matic Station Wagon White 34K
02 E320 4Matic Silver/grey 80K
05 F150 Silver 44K

sorry, I don't see the point either...

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95 M3 (US)
94 318is (EURO)
87 190E 2.6

oh - we'll ban milk 'cos it comes in bottles that you can smash over someones head and kill them..

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C140 420 CL
W114 280CE pimpmobile
W114 250/8 Hillclimber with M110 and bike carbs - got any hot cams?

I drive in a fairly congested area of the NE. It is a frequent thing that you need to pass a truck or a slower vehicle (NJ TPK for instance). Well, no big deal to go over the speed limit for a mile or so until you pass the other guy and you can move back in. But, you frequently get the fellow (or female) who gets behind you and wants you out of the way immediately, whether it is dangerous for you or not.

I have also seen the driver who gets behind the other guy's bumper and literally pushes the car in front, and we are talking about cars going 70/75. And at night you get the high beams that with the new lights do blind you.

If you are not a very experienced driver you may lose your cool.

That is all, a simple thought about the evil of aggressive driving. The freedom to drive fast and put yourself at risk is ok, but I don't think it is there when it involves others. As you can see it is not a big point; I guess the article shook me up a bit.

Since when is the CL600 a big problem? They're so durned rare it makes no difference whatsoever.

What we need to ban is mouth-breathing, cap-wearing, grade-two-drop-out, family-branch-instead-of-tree morons in their Dodge Ram-you-in-the-a$$ pick-ups that drive like lunatics tailgating, swerving in and out of traffic and blasting down the shoulder in rush hour.

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John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

It's the driver not the Gun.........

William Rogers.........

The passing lane , is never a driving lane. That is the German drivig protocal, possibly law on the Auto Bahn.

I followed a CL600 home today, for a good while. What a car...and obviously already here, in Charleston anyway.

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1982 Mercedes-Benz 300CD
1982 Mercedes-Benz 240D - stick